Weekend Video Salon: A Mother's Courageous Response

Manure, Lagoons & Flies, Oh My

Turns out that a farmer right here in the High Country may have stumbled on something about the H1N1 flu outbreak that the U.S. corporate media may not be too comfortable reporting on. Tom Philpott, of Maverick Farms, brings this information to light:

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Is Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork packer and hog producer, linked to the outbreak? Smithfield operates massive hog-raising operations Perote, Mexico, in the state of Vera Cruz, where the outbreak originated.
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On Friday, the U.S. disease-tracking blog Biosurveillance published a timeline of the outbreak containing this nugget, dated April 6 (major tip of the hat to Paula Hay, who alerted me to the Smithfield link on the Comfood listserv and has written about it on her blog, Peak Oil Entrepreneur):

Residents [of Perote] believed the outbreak had been caused by contamination from pig breeding farms located in the area. They believed that the farms, operated by Granjas Carroll, polluted the atmosphere and local water bodies, which in turn led to the disease outbreak. According to residents, the company denied responsibility for the outbreak and attributed the cases to “flu.” However, a municipal health official stated that preliminary investigations indicated that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste and that the outbreak was linked to the pig farms. It was unclear whether health officials had identified a suspected pathogen responsible for this outbreak.
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The Mexico City daily La Jornada has also made the link. According to the newspaper, the Mexican health agency IMSS has acknowledged that the orginal carrier for the flu could be the “clouds of flies” that multiply in the Smithfield subsidiary’s manure lagoons.
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Go, Tom. Go, citizen media. More here.

Private Sector Demands End To Competition

Take a listen to this week's Media Minutes for a quick update on:

An industry-sponsored bill in the North Carolina state legislature [which] would squash attempts by cities and towns to follow the City of Wilson’s lead and build their own broadband networks.

We sure don't want any taxpayers making decisions in favor of having their own local government provide broadband access to the taxpayers in their own towns, now would we?

Let the private sector come in and do it. Then sit back and watch your rates soar. Just like your cable bill. How's that working out?

Queen City Bound

There's no need to worry about right-wing extremism.  This fella made it through security in Las Vegas, but got caught in Boston on his way to Charlotte...to do who knows what.

A North Carolina-based US Marine was arrested at Logan Airport yesterday after federal transportation screeners discovered an undeclared semiautomatic weapon, ammunition, and bomb-making materials in his checked baggage, authorities said.

	Discuss
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Marine Corporal Justin W. Reed was in Boston on a layover from Las Vegas and was bound for Charlotte, officials said.

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Any relation to Mr. McVeigh?  You may want to take another look at this.

Sweet Dreams & Sleepytime Tea

High Country Radio promoted the recent Tea Party held in Boone quite aggressively, both on the air and on goblueridge.net. To most observers, it would seem obvious that High Country Radio would do such a thing--all of the syndicated talk programming carried on their stations skews hard right, and the whole Tea Party event was launched by wealthy folks who tried to pass themselves off as somehow being "grassroots"--who then joined up with the echo chambers that are Fox News, Rush Limbaugh (carried on WXIT 1200 AM), and Neal Boortz (carried on WXIT 1200 AM, in the summer).

And High Country Radio was probably doing just what their wealthy, out-of town masters (Curtis Media) would want them to do--help promote an event that would make it seem like ordinary folks oppose the imposition of any tax increases on the mega-wealthy.

A few of the DNHC Team members attended the Tea Party. We took pictures. Here are our observations.

1) Crowd size. After the Tea Party was over, goblueridge.net made a post on their blog site estimating the attendance to be "around 200". Look at the first picture and decide for yourself. We think not.

2) goblueridge.net promoted the event as being non-partisan. Look at the signs in the second picture. Wrong again, guys.

3) There was a counter-protest at the Tea Party (look at the third and fourth picture). goblueridge.net made no mention of this, nor did the Watauga Democrat. How hard is it to walk around and take pictures?

4) The Emcee of the event (not sure of his name), gave a big shoutout to the local media who came to cover the event--the newsreader who works for MTN, and Mr. Roten of WATA-AM--to thank them for coming. Both of them got a big cheer from the crowd. Did the swooning crowd have any influence on their coverage of the event?

5) The final speaker (introduced as someone from Ashe County, see picture five) bemoaned the recent report issued by the Department of Homeland Security, which highlighted the increasing threat to the country posed by extremist groups, as somehow constituting evidence that groups opposing the government are not going to be allowed to protest anymore--a bizarre rant that would have made Glenn Beck proud.

In all, the messages from the various speakers seemed to focus on their feelings of "disenfranchisement" and desire to keep their own money--all of it. We could not help but notice that the Tea Party attendees were making excellent use of several taxpayer-funded ammenities, like sidewalks, and depending on the existence of Blowing Rock Road to convey the vehicles to which they shouted their anti-tax slogans. This irony was apparently lost on the crowd.

About that crowd. There really did not seem to be many people in attendance who looked like they made more than $250,000 per year. Seemed like just a bunch of average folks. Which brings up the question: if their taxes are not going to increase under the Obama plan, then why were they protesting? In fact, many will see their taxes go DOWN.

Under the Obama-Biden Plan:

• Middle class families will see their taxes cut -- and no family making less than $250,000 will see their taxes increase. The typical middle class family will receive well over $1,000 in tax relief under the Obama-Biden plan, and will pay tax rates that are 20 percent lower than they faced under President Reagan.
• Families making more than $250,000 will pay either the same or lower tax rates than they paid in the 1990s. Obama will ask the wealthiest two percent of families to give back a portion of the tax cuts they have received over the past eight years to ensure we are restoring fairness and returning to fiscal responsibility. But no family will pay higher tax rates than they would have paid in the 1990s.
• The Obama-Biden plan will cut taxes overall, reducing revenues to below the levels that prevailed under Ronald Reagan (less than 18.2 percent of GDP). The plan is a net tax cut -- his tax relief for middle class families is larger than the revenue raised by his tax changes for families over $250,000. Coupled with his commitment to cut unnecessary spending, Obama will pay for this tax relief while bringing down the budget deficit.

Who funded these allegedly "grassroots" protests? And why did High Country Radio promote them so heavily? Can you say astroturf?

Why would an average person defend the mega-wealthy from paying their fair share?

The sixth picture is one more crowd shot. Not 200, sorry.

Affiliate Responsibility To Community

Common sense tells us that it doesn't take all that much to push an already mentally unstable person over the edge.  You watch what you say around them.  Sometimes you have to walk on eggshells, just to keep the peace--or prevent an outburst.  Or worse.

Why then, the suspension of common sense when it comes to considering the possibility that the right wing hate talkers who pervade our nation's airwaves, may themselves be contributing factors leading up to these tragic events?  If someone is mentally unstable, and they frequently listen to (or watch) shows which seem to encourage them to take out their frustrations on liberals--what do you think might happen?

We already know this much:

Police found right-wing political books, brass knuckles, empty shotgun shell boxes and a handgun in the Powell home of a man who said he attacked a church in order to kill liberals "who are ruining the country," court records show.

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Inside the house, officers found "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by radio talk show host Michael Savage, "Let Freedom Ring" by talk show host Sean Hannity, and "The O'Reilly Factor," by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly.

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And then there is this:

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“I’d like to encourage other like-minded people to do what I’ve done,” Adkisson wrote. “If life ain’t worth living anymore, don’t just kill yourself. Do something for your country before you go. Go kill liberals.”

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The two clips above are from the church shooting incident in Tennessee not too long ago.

More recently, we had the police shootings in Pittsburgh.  Again, there was an odd similarity between what right wing programing has been espousing lately, and what the shooter's friends said the shooter's motive may have been. 

But our angle is local.  Many of the local affiliates in the High Country who carry this kind of programming often state how dedicated they are to the communities they serve.  Does that dedication extend to concern for any of their fellow residents who may wind up on the receiving end of a mentally unstable individual's right wing hate talk radio/tv-inspired rampage?

Move Along-Nothing To See Here

Why is it that this story has received so little coverage by High Country mainstream media outlets? Does it seem important to you?

We recently came across a public notice submitted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which was carried in the Jefferson Post. Seems that it had to do with the imminent failure of some dam somewhere--and that there was some sort of substantial threat to human health, or something like that. Right here in Ashe County. Huh.

EPA Announces the Availability of the Administrative Record for the Ore Knob Mine Removal Site, Jefferson, Ashe County, North Carolina.
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...is available for public review...
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The Administrative Record file includes documents that form the basis for selection of the removal action. A removal action is short-term cleanup intended to stabilize a site that poses an imminent and substantial threat to human health or the environment.
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All interested parties are encouraged to review the documents.
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And where can an interested citizen find such documents? Right at the Ashe County Library, of course--which is NOT located at the address indicated in EPA's public notice. This is the correct address of the Ashe County Library:

Ashe County Library

Temporary Location:
Jefferson Station
West Jefferson, NC 28694

Phone: 336.846.2041
Fax: 336.846.7503

Sun	Closed
Mon	8:30AM-6:00PM
Tue	8:30AM-6:00PM
Wed	8:30AM-6:00PM
Thu	8:30AM-6:00PM
Fri	8:30AM-5:00PM
Sat	8:30AM-4:00PM

Go to the library and ask for Mr. Jim McQueen for the EPA documents.

In the meantime, there is a dam located at old mine in Ashe County that is failing. The dam is about 70 feet high and 700 feet wide, and there are plenty of houses all around the dam. These houses have water wells. The water that has been flowing from the failing dam has turned Little Peek Creek and Peek Creek into dead streams at the site. Do you suppose there has been any impact on household wells in the area? How about the health of local residents? Ever heard of the term cancer cluster?

So how about it High County Media? Where are you High County Radio (Curtis, Foothills, whatever)? WASU-FM? The Appalachian? High Country Press? Perhaps these media organizations are having trouble finding the library or the mine site. We want to help:

Library location.

Mine site.

More here.